FORMER mob investigator Joe Coffey, who’s caught more wiseguys than he’s caught colds, was lamenting that rats have taken the sport out of the game.

Joe was talking during the lunch break of the trial of three goodfellas who are now very worried fellas in Manhattan federal court.

“You pinch wiseguys these days and it’s a ground ball. You just wait until someone rolls. And your job is pretty easy,” he said.

On the stand yesterday was Vincent “Vinny Ocean” Palermo, who left school in Brooklyn at the eighth grade, never learned to read, but has since learned to sing like Caruso.

Vinny Ocean was telling prosecutor John Hillebrecht about his DeCavalcante crew, guys like “Frankie the Beast,” “Shakey,” “Johnny Boy” and “Kid Joey.”

In 1989, Vinny Ocean had to report to his capo Rudi Ferrone about how he’d screwed up on a hit of two guys.

Rudi looked serious and told Vinny Ocean that it “was a mortal sin for an intended victim to run away from a hit – a person who knew he was going to die anyway.”

You know the rule, take it like a man.

In the old days, Joe reminisced, not only did wiseguys not rat on wiseguys – they wouldn’t even rat on cops.

“I’m in the restaurant at Belmont Racetrack at the Breeders’ Cup two years ago and I see Anthony ‘Junior’ Sirocco. He throws his hands up and says, ‘Maronne, don’t hit me again,’ and laughed out loud.”

Joe had caught Sirocco in a shakedown deal and smashed his nose with his service revolver, splattering Junior’s white suit with blood.

“When he appeared in court the next day, the judge asked him where did he get the blood. Junior said he had fallen over.”

Junior now plays “Paulie Walnuts” on the hit series “The Sopranos.”

“In those days, the wiseguys respected cops so long as you made the pinch legitimate. They used to say, ‘You can catch me, don’t screw me.’ ”

No wonder old Carlo Gambino insisted his grandchildren, grand nieces and grand nephews become doctors or lawyers – because wiseguys, infested by rodents, are no longer respectable.